Haricot cannellini

Bean starch thickens the broth the leaf has been bleeding into.

Sage in hot oil first, bean second. Reverse the order and you get soap.

The bean is a sponge with no fat. Raw oil poured over is the actual dish.

Oily fish, dry pulse, raw onion. Three ingredients, no cooking, done.

Beans, mustard, six hours. The bitterness is what stops it turning to jam.

Bland starch and bitter leaf, both softened past the point of texture.

Soft starch under a chewy leaf. The oldest peasant trade.

Bland starch needs a loud herb; beans absorb resin better than they should.

Bland starch needs an edge; beans absorb chilli oil like a sponge.

Creamy beans need something dark; smoke does what a ham hock would.

Beans soak up paprika-stained fat and turn it into the sauce.

Whole cloves in the cooking water, crushed into the bean at the end.

The pulse has no acid; the tomato has nothing but. Straight trade.

Stalky green over cream. Chop it late so it stays wet.

Cured fat renders into the pot and the bean absorbs every gram of it.

Zest, not juice — the oil in the peel survives the fat, the acid drowns in it.

Warm beans and green sauce make a whole dish that only looks like a side.

Beans have no fat of their own. Cassoulet is the correction.

Bland starch needs a glutamate bomb; one tomato seasons the whole pot.

Creamy bean plus dry herb; the sumac is doing the work of a vinaigrette.

A strip in the bean pot softens the skins and seasons the water at once.

Melted into the oil it becomes salt with a savoury tail, not fish.

Warm beans absorb the vinegar and the oil, becoming a salad by accident.

Brine liquor is the stock. The bean takes it and gives back body.

The purée is neutral fat, which is the only surface truffle reads clearly on.

A scrape into the purée: shared soft lactones, and the bean stops tasting savoury.